Peterson Exais and Isabella Giret entered AileyCamp Miami from different worlds. Peterson, 14, a survivor of the Haiti earthquake in 2010, and Isabella, 11, who moved to Miami from Brazil three years ago, signed up with varying degrees of eagerness.
Thursday’s installment of TODAY’s series, “Hope to It,” spotlights AileyCamp, a six-week program from Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater that serves kids ages 11 to 14, helping them face personal challenges through dance.
For six weeks this summer, more than 100 city kids will learn dance techniques in Washington Heights from some of the best trained dancers in the country. AileyCamp, a program of the world-famous Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, kicked off last week, transforming IS 90 into a dancer's playground.
Chanel Clersaint, 14, is all smiles as she works on her form during a dance class at AileyCamp Miami, a six-week summer camp taking place at the Arsht Center. The camp, in its fourth season, brings together children ages 11 to 14 who are struggling with poverty, crime, single-parent households and other challenges.
Simpson Middle School seventh-grader Aniya Cardell has followed in her older sister's footsteps as an AileyCamp dance student, but is now moving to her own beat as an aspiring entertainer.
WBGO's Doug Doyle features AileyCamp Newark's final performance.
The Berkeley/Oakland AileyCamp at Cal Performances is a six-week intensive dance camp designed to teache discipline and inspire creativity through dance to middle school children (ages 11-14) of Oakland.
This summer was a time for family, fun and life skills for 100 Miami-Dade County middle school students participating in the Alvin Ailey Camp, June 27-Aug. 6 at the Adriencce Arsht Center of the Performing Arts in downtown Miami.
When Nehprii Amenii of Brooklyn walked into Newark Arts High School for the first time this summer, she was prepared to be hit with what she called "full cannons of attitude." Since then, she has been spending weekdays teaching creative communication to 11 to 14 year-olds as part of AileyCamp, a full-day summer program offered by the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and financed, in Newark, entirely by the Prudential Foundation.
On the vast stage of UC Berkeley's Zellerbach Hall, rows of middle-school children are standing in vaguely organized lines. They're trying hard to be attentive, but they look fidgety, the boys pulling fitfully at their shirts, the girls adjusting their leotards.